More Than One In Five Show Me State High School Students Report Being Bullied On School Grounds

A new report from WalletHub lists Missouri as having the third biggest high school bullying problem in the United States.

Using data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the National Center for Education Statistics, amongst others, the report notes 23.3 percent of Show Me State high school students report being bullied on school property. Another 19.4 percent of Missouri high school students report being bullied online, 6.4 percent of Missouri students missed school out of fear of being bullied, and 8.6 percent attempted suicide.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) permits students to transfer to another public school under ESSA’s Unsafe School Choice Option provision, but only if their current public school meets the state definition of a “persistently dangerous” school. Because states define unsafe schools so narrowly, fewer than 50 American public schools out of nearly 100,000 are labeled “persistently dangerous” each year.

Students should not have to wait years or become victims of violent crime before their parents are able to transfer them to safer schools. To address this dreadful situation, The Heartland Institute has created a Child Safety Account (CSA) model program. CSAs are a type of education savings account (ESA) for parents who feel, for whatever reason, their child is unsafe at school. A CSA would empower parents to remove their children from unsafe schools and choose a safer education environment. CSA funds could be used to pay for tuition at public charter, public, parochial, private, and virtual schools, as well as homeschooling and other education-related expenses.

Under Heartland’s CSA program, students would be eligible for a CSA account if their parents have a “reasonable apprehension” for their children’s physical or emotional safety based on the experiences of their children, including bullying, hazing, or harassment. Parents could also determine the school their child attends is not safe after reviewing the incidents-based statistics schools would be required to report. Parents would no longer have to wait years until their child’s school meets ESSA’s too-narrow definition of “persistently dangerous” or, worse, until their child becomes the victim of some form of violent crime.

An annual survey by Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) reveals more than one-third of parents fear for their child’s safety at school. Altogether, 34 percent answered they are afraid for their children while they attend school. This number rises to 48 percent for parents earning less than $50,000 per year. This represents a large jump from 2013, when only 12 percent of respondents answered they feared for their child’s safety.

The Missouri education system’s failure to protect children and provide parents with reasonable alternatives is precisely why CSA programs are so desperately needed. As things currently stand, Missouri is a school choice desert, and the district model effectively allows wealthier families to transfer their child to a safer school when they feel it is imperative. The freedom afforded to those families should be afforded to all Missouri families, as every child deserves to have the resources available to allow them to escape an unsafe school environment.

The following documents provide more information about school safety and school choice.

Protecting Students with Child Safety Accountshttps://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/protecting-students-with-child-safety-accounts
In this Heartland Policy Brief, Vicki Alger, senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and research fellow at the Independent Institute and Heartland Policy Analyst Tim Benson detail the prevalence of bullying, harassment, and assault taking place in America’s public schools and the difficulties for parents in moving their child from an unsafe school. Alger and Benson propose a Child Safety Account program, which would allow parents to immediately move their child to a safe school— private, parochial, or pub­lic— as soon as parents feel the school their child is currently attending is too dangerous for their child’s physical or emotion­al health.

2017 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K–12 Education, Parent Experiences, School Choice, and the Role of the Federal Governmenthttps://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2017-Schooling-In-America-by-Paul-DiPerna-Michael-Shaw-and-Andrew-D-Catt.pdf
This annual EdChoice survey, conducted in partnership with Braun Research, Inc., measures public opinion and awareness on a range of K–12 education topics, including parents’ schooling preferences, educational choice policies, and the federal government’s role in education. The survey also records response levels, differences, and intensities for citizens located across the country and in a variety of demographic groups.

The Public Benefit of Private Schooling: Test Scores Rise When There Is More of Ithttps://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa830.pdf
This Policy Analysis from the Cato Institute examines the effect increased access to private schooling has on international student test scores in 52 countries. The Cato researchers found that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of private school enrollment would lead to moderate increases in students’ math, reading, and science achievement.

Nothing in this Research & Commentary is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of The Heartland Institute. For further information on this subject, visit School Reform News, The Heartland Institute’s website, and PolicyBot, Heartland’s free online research database.

The Heartland Institute can send an expert to your state to testify or brief your caucus; host an event in your state; or send you further information on a topic. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance! If you have any questions or comments, contact John Nothdurft, Heartland’s director of government relations, at jnorthdurft@heartland.org or 312/377-4000.